MoviePass took some well-deserved heat this week after the company’s CEO revealed on stage at an industry event that his app was tracking users’ a little too closely:

“We get an enormous amount of information. We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards.”

There’s been plenty of backlash about MoviePass overstepping the mark, including in a segment on the latest “Smashing Security” podcast, so I’m pleased to see that the company appears to have updated its app in response to the wave of negative feedback.

New updates for MoviePass’s iOS and Android apps were released yesterday.

The Android changelog just describes the update as “Bug fixes”, but the iOS version history shares a little more information:

“Removed unused app location capability”

As we describe on the latest “Smashing Security” podcast, MoviePass is looking for ways to make money from film fans which go past simply selling them cheap seats at the cinema. They’re interested in your entire evening, where you buy drinks before the movie, what restaurant you go to afterwards, which of their partners might be able to tempt you with a special deal if you’re in the area…

This is all fine, of course, if the user has made a conscious informed decision to allow companies like MoviePass to track their movements.

About the author, Graham Cluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy.

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